IRS Form 1023 Request and Church Responses

In the early returns from our request for the Forms 1023 from the various ICOC churches, there appears to be a visible pattern in their replies. First of all, none of them have responded to our survey questions, and only one (S. Florida) have even mentioned those questions. Secondly, of nine respondents to date, none of them has sent the requested documents. Some claim that they are not bound by law to send them, while others claim simply not to have them at all, or to be uncertain as to whether what they do have is complete.

We would like to note that the IRS rule excusing any 501(c)(3) from showing their 1023 if they were not in possession of it on July 15, 1987 makes for an improvable situation. In other words, there is no way to prove whether any of these organizations really did have this form in their possession on that date or not. So it would seem that we must take their words for this. We would add, however, that those who claim that they did not have the form THEN, said nothing in their letters about whether they have it NOW. Perhaps they are relieved to have found a loophole in the law.

Lastly, it is interesting that those churches who are claiming to be trying to get these documents from the IRS don’t seem to be commenting that failure to maintain these forms for public inspection and copying is a violation of Internal Revenue Code. It seems they just hope that we won’t say anything to the IRS about it while we wait around for them to get their copies from the IRS in six to eight months. (We will say something to the IRS.)

Here are the highlights, and if you want to see more, just click on the links to see the actual response letters. “Unresponsive” means that the church did not address the survey questions we asked of them. Some churches acknowledged we asked them questions, but none of the churches have answered our questions.

As each church submits its documentation to ICOCinvestigation.com, the church name (on the chart below) will be turned into a hyperlink and will link to the response received.

Please forward any information you may have about churches omitted from this list. We are also in need of the addresses for the churches listed in yellow below. Please forward this information to the webmaster.